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RESEARCHES AND TRANSACTIONS 

OF 

THE NEW YORK STATE ARCHEOLOGICAL 
ASSOCIATION 



LEWIS H. MORGAN CHAPTER 

ROCHESTER, N. Y. 



Western New York 
Under the French 



Bid. FRANK H, SEVERANCE, 

Sec'y Buffalo Historical Society 

Buffalo, N. Y. 



An address delivered before the Morgan Chapter in Memorial 

Art Gallery, University Campus, Rochester, N. Y., 

December 19, 1919. 



\Si 



PUBLISHED BY LEWIS H, MORGAN CHAPTER 

ROCHESTER, N. Y. 

1920 



Mi 



fmofjtt^ 



NEW YORK STATE ARCHEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 
Morg^an Chapter, Rochester, N. Y. 

OFFICERS, 1920 

President — Alvin H. Dewey, 

440-444 Powers Building. 

First Vice President — Mrs. Frank F. Dow, 

429 Park Avenue. 

Second Vice President — E. G. Foster, 

36 Arvine Park. 

"*■ Secretary, Walter H. Cassebeer, 

154 East Avenue. 

Treasurer — Edward D. Putnam, 

Municipal IViuseum, Exposition Park. 



Publications of Morgan Chapter. 

Vol. I — No. 1 — A Prehistoric Iroquoiau Site, Illus. - - $1.00 

By Dr. Arthur C. Parker, N. Y. State Archeologist. 
Vol. I— No. 2— A Contact Period Seneca Site, Illus. - .75 

By Dr. Arthur C. Parker, N. Y. State Archeologist. 
Vol. I— No. 3— The Morgan Centennial Celebration at 

Wells College, Aurora, Illus. - - - .75 
By Prof. Roland B. Dixon, of Harvard University. 
Vol. II— No. 1— The Nfew York Indian Complex and 

How To Solve ^It, Illus. .75 

By Dr. Arthur C. Parker, Secretary of the N. Y. State Indian 

Commission and Archeologist of the State Museum. 
Vol. II— No. 2— Western New York under the French - .75 
By Frank. H. Severance, Secretary Buffalo Historical Society. 




Reprinted from "An Old Frontier of France." 



Vol. II. No. 2. 

RESEARCHES AND TRANSACTIONS 

OF 

THE NEW YORK STATE ARCHEOLOGICAL 
ASSOCIATION 



LEWIS H. MORGAN CHAPTER 

ROCHESTER, N. Y. 



Western New York 
Under the French 



DR. FRANK H'^ SEVERANCE, 

It 
Sec'y Buffalo Historical Society 

Buffalo, N. V. 



An address delivered before the Morgan Chapter in Memorial 

Art Gallery, University Campus, Rochester, N. Y., 

December 19, 1919. 



if; 



PUBLISHED BY LEWIS H. MORGAN CHAPTER 

ROCHESTER, N. Y. 

1920 

Press of C. F. Milliken & Co., Canandaigua, New York. 



WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 

By FRANK H. SEVERANCE 
Secretary of the Buffalo Historical Society, Buffalo, N. Y. 

I thank you for the privilege of meeting with you to-night, 
but I am haunted by the feeling that I should address you on 
an arehaeological subject. This I cannot do. My theme is 
history ; but it is a history that runs back so far that in some of 
its phases it supplies material for the archaeologist. I invite 
you to consider with me for a little while typical events which 
mark the course of history in what is now Western New York, 
in the days when this part of our country was under the 
domination of France. 

We forget sometimes how far back white man's history 
hereabouts really reaches. Not long ago I had a call in my 
office from a New England woman, a Boston schoolmistress, 
very intelligent, very alert, as they all are. After asking many 
questions about the history of our region, she remarked, 
reflectively, "But you are so new here, you can't have much 
history.'' I might have replied, had I been readier, that white 
man's history on the Niagara runs back as far as it does on 
Massachusetts Bay, but she had gone back to Boston before 1 
thought of it. I am usually that way in repartee or apt replies. 
I think of them a week or so too late. However, it is just as 
well. She might have challenged my statement — some of these 
New Englanders take their Norumbega legend very seriously ! 

However', I stand by the statement : It is true of our 
region that white men were here before the Pilgrims had pressed 
foot on Plymouth Rock. It is true that white men were making 
history in Western New York, and history of wide significance, 
as early as they were in Massachusetts, although I fancy you 
will hardly find in any of the books that this phase of our early 
history is much emphasized. 

In a brief offhand talk, such as this must be, I can only 
attempt to touch a few^ typical episodes, but I shall try to select 
such phases of our early history as are not merely local in 



24 WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 

significance, but which truly relate the evolution of our home 
region to the evolution of America. And let it be noted at the 
outset that the first chapter, the beginnings hereabouts, are 
different from what we find oftentimes in the early history of a 
region. The first chapter in history, you will recall, is" often 
a story of ruthless conquest, of greed for land, or a search for 
gold Not so here. The beginnings of white man's history in 
^\estern New York are a story of the bringing hither of ' the 
gospeJ of peace and good-will. It is true here that the 
Christian cross was raised before the sword was drawn Here- 
abouts the Christian altar was set up before the hearth was 
laid. It IS only in some such sweeping phrases that I can 
epitomize seventy years of early missionary work among the 
aborigines of Western New York. Those early ChrLian 
workers were of three holy orders: The Franciscans, the 
S^dpitians and the Jesuits. Into the scattered Indian villages 
of this region, the black-robed missionaries of this last-nanfed 
of Th J TlZ" '" :^"«^^«r^ble numbers throughout the latter half 
of the 17th century. The villages where thev labored have 
been located, .some of them, by your archaeologists who! 
excavations and researches help the historian to:dav to 
reconstruct the conditions which these pioneer priests found 
when they cast in their adventurous lot among sav ges n 

I^rin'r'-'^'^''^'''''' ^^^ ^-"-^ of^some'o?thes: 
nilht ""■ ^^""^''' ^""•^^^' M^na^'t. Vaillant-we 

n our M^orVtT^ "f ^ ''^^~*^ ^^"""^ '^^ ^' ^- -P-tal 

Those I hv/ ^'' ''''' '' """'°''^ ""^^ ^^^"^ ''■ 

Ihose I have named came into the region, for the most part 

om he eastward: but others, some of them of thT rli ' 
cam from beyond the Niagara. There was Joseph do la Ro he 
Dallion, whose work among the Neuters in the Niagara rein 
was as earlv as Ifi''? n^r +1, -^ ^^lagara region 

.:.l.^or,.'t„•,,;",,^,:■•'.r '■Tr " '•■• ■'—' 

a and of a certainty 
on his hazardous mission 



apparently ca,„e into the nZS ■ ' *"'™'' ''™'^' 



WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 26 

from Canatia to the tribes oi the Susquehanna. Of his return 
to our region and of his torture by Western New York savages, 
and someiiiiug of his subsequent career, there is fairly definite, 
though very meager chronicle. lie was the forerunner of the 
missionaries. 

in the long roil of men who in those early years gave up 
all the comforts of life, who hazarded even existence itself, for 
the sake of bringing Christian teaching to the Indians, I dwell 
lor a moment on one heroic figure, typical of many. 

It was in iNovember, 1640, when the Jesuit Fathers Brebeuf 
and Chaumonot came from the vicinity of the Georgian Bay, 
through the Niagara l^enmsuia and across the Niagara, proceed- 
ing eastward apparently to the neighborhood of Lockport. 
They had undertaken a missionary visit to the Neuter Indians, 
whose habitat at that time reached apparently as far eastward 
as the point indicated. Here they spent the winter months. 
The story of their experiences, which I cannot stop to relate 
in detail, is a very somber and tragic one. They were scarcely 
tolerated in the Indian villages where they sought to plant the 
cross and to teach Christianity. The articles of their holy office 
were stolen from them, they well nigh starved, often they were 
refused shelter ; there was no outcast mongrel dog but was 
better treated than they. Towards the end of winter, despairing 
of any satisfactory fruits of their labors, they retraced their 
steps and crossed the Niagara, bound northward towards the 
mission establishment of St. Mary's on the Wye. There has 
come down to us a unique chronicle of their experience in the 
Niagara region. At the end of a day's march through the 
snow, they had sought an Indian hut for a night's shelter. 
Before going to rest, Father Brebeuf, to escape the acrid smoke 
of the hut and to find peace in solitude, went out into the forest 
to pray. As his thoughts ascended to Heaven in devotion, there 
appeared before him in the starlit heavens, a huge luminous 
cross. It appeared to ai)proach him from the land of the 
Neuters. Overcome with emotion, — or to use the words of a 
sympathetic chronicle, "emparadised in ecstasy" — the priest 
saw in the wonderful symbol the presage of his own martyrdom. 
Throwing wide his arras, he cried : "Sentio me vehementer 
inipclli ad moricndiim pro Clirisfo" — ^"I feel within me a mighty 



26 WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE PRBNOH 

impulse to die for Christ" — and falling on his knees in the 
snow he registered his wonderful vow, to meet martyrdom when 
it should come in a spirit befitting a servant of his Lord and 
Master. When he came to himself, the cross had faded, the 
stars M^ere shining in the wintrj^ sky, and the icy cold was 
clasping him in its clutches. Painfull}- he retraced his steps 
to the cabin and laid him down to rest. The next morning, 
as they journeyed on, he told of his vision. "Was the cross 
large?" asked Chaumonot. "Large?" .said Brebeuf, "yes; large 
enough to crucify us all." 

Now, I hear you saying to yourselves, "But that is 
not history ; that is legend ; that is myth ; that is the result 
of religious fervor;" or perhaps you say with Parkman, that it 
is simply "psychology." Interpret it as you will, my friends. 
T care not what your faith may be or whether you have no faith 
at all ; but we cannot escape the facts, and as students of our 
history M^e must recognize that in this narration there is embodied 
a record which symbolizes the devoted work of many honest 
and spiritually-minded men throughout many years in this 
region. To me the story of the great cross, the experience of 
Father Brebeuf, the Constantine of Western New York, stands 
as a welcome reminder of unselfish and heroic devotion to the 
welfare of others. 

Let this suffice for the missionary period, though I need not 
remind the student of our history that the missionary to the 
Indians, or the priest, as chaplain to the soldi(n-s, was never 
absent wherever France sent her forces in any number. But 
after the period which was distinctively missionary, our history 
takes other aspects. Indeed as I recall it, it unrolls like the 
photographic film of the moving picture, so that as we view it 
we can see our early history pass as it were in pictorial fashion. 
Always M'ith the background of these Western New York hills 
and forests, lakes and rivers, there passes a strange procession. 
First, as I have said, the missionary priest in his black cassock 
or in the brown robe with the heavy cord, carrying his portable 
altar on his back; and with him and after him, the explorer, 
oftentimes the man half French, half Indian, with European 
antecedents, and yet truly a son of the wilderness ; the boatman, 
the voyagcur, singing the songs of old Anjou and Lorraine ; the 



WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 27 

courcur du bois, the woodranger. with perhaps family ties at 
Quebec, or Three Rivers, or Montreal, yet hesitating not to make 
domestic ties among whatever Indian village the fortunes of the 
fur trade brought him into ; and then came the trained soldier 
of France, with the purpose not merely to profit by the Indian 
trade, which was essentially the barter of liquor and of trifles 
for fur, but to establish posts, frontier garrisons, for the sake 
of controlling the travel through the country and gaining a new 
empire for France. And with these little frontier armies there 
came also the civilian, the trader, ready to profit by the amazing 
opportunities of graft and fraud which .the frontier trade 
ofit'ered. There came the dignitaries of New France, on official 
visits ; and there even came, now and then, into this wilderness, 
diplomatic representatives and courtiers from Paris and 
Versailles, who brought into our region some of the refinements 
of old France and Avith their high living, their fine wines, their 
niceties of dress, won the envy of savage warriors whose 
previous ideas of the toilet had been limited by vermilion, 
grease and feathers. These are some of the figures that move 
across the canvas, that make up the moving picture of our early 
history; figures for the most part typical of the continent-wide 
phase of the evolution which as students, we seek to know. 

The religious impulse was the first that sent white men into 
our region. But not far behind it came the trade spirit. If 
charity and good-will came first, greed and self-interest followed 
close after. Many an expedition which we designate as having 
been undertaken for exploration, had its real underlying purpose 
in a desire to seek out and occupy regions which should be 
profitable for trade. Indeed, the history of our region, for a 
century or more under the French, may be symbolized by a 
beaver skin, held, shall we say, at its four corners by a French- 
man, an Englishman, a Dutchman and an Indian, the poor 
Dutchman early bowled over in the strife, the Englishman and 
the Frenchman always seeking to circumvent the other and each 
currying favor with the red man, who was ever at a loss as to 
w'here his real interest la.v, and ready with whatever ally he 
had at the moment to stick a knife into the back of his foe. 
It was truly an international strife for the control of the 
resources of a vast region. The Indian was always at a great 



28 WiBSTERN NEW YORK UNDER THiE FRENCH 

disadvantage, for he had uo idea of property values, nor was 
he ever strong enough numerically to withstand the incoming 
tide of his foes. 

Of all the men who led expeditions through Western New 
York and the region of the Lakes, and thence westward or 
southward, La Salle stands preeminent. He was in many 
respects without peer or rival, but he was by no means the 
only man of his kind. Year after year expeditions were sent 
hither, led by ,gallant men, but of many of these adventurers 
only the slightest record remains. In your in^mediate neighbor- 
hood here at Rochester, history-making began a new chapter 
with the first coming of La Salle, in 1669. On that early 
journey he undoubtedly saw the shores of Irondequoit Bay and 
followed trails ancient even then, with the remains of which 
some of you, students of the past, are no doubt familiar. Of 
his greater adventure, in 1678 and 79, I do not need to speak at 
this time, for it has been made probably the most familiar 
episode in all the history of our region under the French. 
More to our purpose was the later expedition, led by Denonville, 
which, in 1687, came to Irondequoit, marched a little army a 
few miles south, destroyed some Indian villages, the sites of 
which still furnish pleasant occupation to the archaeologist, and 
finally withdrew from the region, having built at the mouth of the 
Niagara a fort, which did not last long; and having won as the 
sum total of his expedition nothing more substantial than the 
increased enmity of the Indians. Here was a short-sighted 
attempt to establish authority which reacted against the French 
from Denonville 's time down to the English conquest. Although 
there were times when the Senecas professed allegiance to 
France, although there were instances of friendship, there never 
was a time when the Senecas as a whole were not suspicious of 
the government at Quebec and ready to betray the French who 
came into the region, into the hands of the English, if they 
thought their own interests could be advanced by so doing. 

May I remind you that the story of Western New York 
under the French is not, save in slightest degree, a story of 
settlement. There is marked contrast between the French 
on the Detroit, where they went avowedly for settlement and 
home-making, and the French on the Niagara, which they 



WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 29 

occupied merely to cojitrol the passage to regions beyond. The 
French knew and traversed many Western New York paths, 
hnt save in temporary fasliion and for trade purposes, they did 
not attempt settlement in the region oast of the Niagara; though 
from the Treaty of Utrecht they claimed title to it and 
jurisdiction over its tribes. 

Far more certain was their control of the Great Lakes. 
They navigated Lake Ontario, without challenge or competitor, 
for well nigh a century and a half — if we reckon from 
Champlain's first coming, to the building of the first vessel by 
the English for those waters. From the days of La Salle and 
Denonville down to the end of the French period the story of 
Lake Ontario appeals by its very meagerness to the imagination. 
Never wholly deserted by traders, it was more than once the 
theater of scenes of violence and outlawry. The French, 
realizing more and more its splendid possibilities, sent into it 
goodly store of trading goods; and, in the earlier days, kept 
in commission one or two primitive brigantines, which skirted 
the forested shores, made port of call wherever barter could be 
Inul, and cruised without hindrance and with no mean seaman- 
ship these lonely wilderness waters. Wind and wave and 
seasons' changes, seemingly so fickle, were then as now; but 
the intrepid navigator of those distant years had little to rely 
on save his own resources and the Providence which attends 
the daring. There were no charts to show channel or reef, 
rock or shoal, save such as be might sketch from his own 
discoveries ; no lights to warn or guide ; no harbors even, 
save such as nature made: yet every glimpse we have of the 
life of old, shows the lake sailors of those days as a happy-go- 
liicky crew who knew the ins and outs of Ontario's shores, 
rocky isles and tortuous channels, as no manner of men have 
known them since, and who bore into every bay and anchorage 
the Avhite flag of the Bourbon kings. 

To-day, the leisured yachtsman making lioliday, moors his 
shining craft in some pellucid cove. As evening falls, the lap 
of wavelets at his vessel's side, the incense of his ruminative 
pipe, lull his soul into a receptive sense of sights and sounds 
unheeded in the bright and busy day. Dimly through the dusk, 
around the neighboring point he sees a strange-shaped vessel 



30 WESTERN NEW YORK UNDEiR THE FRENCH 

glide. He hears the creak of a gaif, the iiiufded clatter of 
lowering sail, calls aud commands in a tongue half known, half 
strange- the splash of an anchor and the rhythm of a running 
chain. The August moon makes silhouette of a distant pine, 
the drowsy breeze brings refrain of some foolish, haunting- 
melody of the old regime, of the days when the hardy sons of 
France, sailing these wilderness waters as their own, still like 
the children they were, sang the songs of Anjou, of Brittany 
or Lorraine. Lulled to the border-land of sleep, our summer 
sailor vows to seek at daybreak the unknown craft — but with 
the first sun-glint, his thought is for the morning plunge, the 
glorious swim; and like the vanishing wisps of mist, fades the 
memory of his brief and shadowy comradeship with the old- 
time voyagcurs and sailors of the Ontario sea. 

Whoever seeks to trace the evolution of our regional 
history will advance by a series of steps, each logically 
the outcome of what has gone before. 

The colony of New France was a great burden to old France. 
To increase its revenues, it sought to develop the fur trade. To 
this end, traders were licensed to come into the Indian country, 
with goods aud liquor for barter; and although the restrictions 
governing this trade varied from time to time, it is true that, 
as a general thing, the Government encouraged the trafdc, and 
was very liberal with both, traders and Indians. The traders 
especially sought favor with the Onondagas, whose control was 
paramount among the Iroquois, and among the Senecas, who 
were not only the most powerful of the tribes, but who, being 
the westernmost occupant of " the long house, ' ' had readier 
access to the beaver-bearing regions. Still more important was 
their control of travel routes. No trader could venture up the 
valley of the Genesee, or over the Niagara portage, unless 
reasonably sure of the friendship — ^at least of the temporary 
toleration — of the giuirdian Seneeas. Many tribes came to 
the Niagara to trade, some of them, such as the Delawares and 
Shawanese, from the Ohio and regions to the southward ; others, 
of Algonquin stock, from the Upper Lakes and beyond. Both 
the French and the English very early recognized the necessity 
of gaining control of the Niagara portage, for it w^as the key to 
the trade of the vast West and South; nor could there be any 



WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 31 

safe occupancy or traffic in Central and Western New York, 
without assurance that tlie Niagara was in friendly hands. The 
English, after one or two abortive attempts to trade in the 
Lakes region, withdrew from the tield and bided their time for 
half a century ; but the l^'rench, from the opening years of the 
Eig'hteenth century, set out deliberately to gain and to hold that 
pass. They made no show of force ; but with a craftiness 
worthy of the Seneca himself, they sent among the savages 
young men who were to serve as interpreters ; but who, 
growing up in Indian villages, gained the friendship of the 
aborigines, and were adopted into the tribes. 

The course of history in Western New York for many 
years — for more than a half century — was really determined 
by a few men of this type. There was the elder Chauvignerie^ 
who virtually lived and worked for many years among the 
Onondagas. There was, very notably, the second Baron de 
Longueuil, to whose tact and persistence was due the reluctant 
consent of the Onondagas that the French might build Fort 
Niagara, at the mouth of the river. De Longueuil, you will 
recall, was a member of the Le Moyne family of Canada— a 
family which, in my judgment, has never received quite its 
full meed of credit for the part it bore in American history. I 
have elsewhere* indicated, inadequately, some of their 
achievements, and will only remind you now that it was Charles 
Le Moyne the younger who not only gained the Indian consent, 
which emboldened the French to build Fort Niagara and to 
assurne control of the portage, but it was he who was the first 
commandant of that storied post, thus beginning a succession 
which, under three successive flags, has continued to this day. 

The Le Moynes w^ere aristocrats, rich and powerful. 
Another family, neither rich nor politically powerful, proved 
of even greater usefulness to France throughout the early 
decades of the Eighteenth century, in gaining the fickle friend- 
ship of the Iroquois, in securing to Canada the bulk of the fur 
trade, and most important of all, in making it possible for the 
French to establish themselves on the Niagara and at other 



* See "An Old Frontier of France," Vol. 1, pp. 244, 245. I have in 
this address utilized one or two anecdotes from the same work, thinking 
it permissible to quote from myself without explicit credit. 



32 . WESTERN NEW YORK UJSrj>BR THE FRENCH . 

strategic points. What the Court of Louis XIV and XV could 
not do by decree or show of arms, was accomplished by men of 
this untitled, perhaps unlettered family, who through two ^ 
generations more than anyone else, made the history of Western 
New York. 

I refer to the Joncaires, father and sons. The father cam6_ 
to Canada as a lad. in the latter years of the Seventeenth 
century. Taken captive by the Indians, he grew up among 
savages, early mastered several Iroquois dialects, and was thus 
after his ransom able to render exceptionally efficient service 
as interpreter throughout a long life. While still a young man, 
he came into Western New York, the agent of the Canadian 
Government, and it was he who first established the French 
in trade on the banks of the Niagara. It was this Niagara 
trading-house, built in 1720, which so provoked the English 
that they undertook a counter-move and established themselves 
at Oswego. Oswego was practically the only foothold which 
the English gained in what is now New York State, west of 
the Mohawk Valley, down to the overthrow of the French in 
1760. It is true that they made attempts to occupy other 
points, especially Irondequoit Bay. From time to time they 
conducted negotiations with the Senecas for permission to trade 
ill their country, but nothing came of it, chiefly because this 
French agent, Joncaire, had so adroitlv ^established himself 
in the good-will of the Senecas that the French remained in 
their enjoyment of the fur trade of the region. When in 
1726 Port Niagara was built, it was largely to Joncaire that 
credit was due. He joined his forefathers in 1739, leaving 
a numerous family — probably leaving two families; one French, 
one half-breed; but of his children by a French mother, two 
sons continued the work w'hich the father had begun and for 
many years were active and successful in promoting the interests 
■ if the French in our region; not merely the trade interests, 
but gradually the establishment of France as a military power 
at the back of the Alleghanies. One of these sons, usually 
spoken of as Chabert, shared in many a military expedition 
into the heart of Western New York or souttiward from Lake 
Erie into the Ohio Valley. He is really a notable figure in 
that period of American history and I regret that I cannot 



WIBSTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FREJNOH 33 

linger more adequately to sketch his work aud to impress upon 
you his personality. He was at once an interpreter and adoptive 
son of the Senecas, a commercial agent and a military officer, 
it was he who brouglit about the construction of tihe iirst French 
fort above Miagaia rails, aud who was its commander. It was 
he who promoted the building of the chain of wilderness 
stockade forts southerly from Lake Erie, at Le Boeuf in north- 
western Pennsylvania, now Waterford, and at Venango, now 
J^ranklin, at the junction of French Creek with the Alleghany. 
No man in his time was more dreaded and hated by the English. 
A price was put upon his head. Indeed, the English 'had ample 
cause for enmity, for it was Chabert Joncaire more than any 
other man of the frontier who, during the last years of French 
occupancy in our region organized those terror-spreading war- 
parties, which, making their way from Fort Niagara as a base, 
stealthily followed the forest trails eastward to the Mohawk, 
southerly to the Chemung, the Susquehanna and other valleys, 
to fall upon the pioneer outposts, the isolated cabins, to kill 
the aged, to burn the buildings, to steal the livestock and to 
take captive the young boys and girls, bringing them back 
over these hundreds of miles of wilderness paths to Fort 
Niagara. It was a sort of warfare peculiar to our region. A 
few years later the British, in alliance with these Western New- 
York Indians, followed exactly the same methods and were 
responsible for even greater atrocities; but the war-party raid 
and the capture of young people were a feature of French 
occupancy and were promoted largely by Chabert Joncaire and 
a few other capable, hardy, half-savage Frenchmen of his kind. 
In considering the aspect of those distant days, one is 
tempted to reconstruct, as far as his scanty knowledge and 
imagination serve, the conditions which tihe French found when 
they undertook to traverse the paths of Western New York, 
or to reside for trading purposes among the Indians. We can 
readily imagine the scattered villages of the Senecas, seated by 
the clear streams or pleasant lakes of Western New York. The 
Indians did not dig wells, but they knew the location of every 
natural spring and in many cases utilized their medicinal 
properties. The Jesuit missionaries in the region were very 
early led by them to a burning spring, obviously one of the 



34 WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 

natuial gas or oil wells of our region. They knew of the 
presence of petroleum and may have used it as an embrocation; 
at any rate, it was so used by white men, who styled it "Seneca 
oil," and put it on the market as an effective cure-all. 

When the French first came among the Senecas, the mode of 
alxjriginal village life was already changing; the earlier 
community house, surrounded by a stockade, had in many 
instances been abandoned, so that the French found the Indians 
living in detached huts or cabins, scattered among the trees of 
the forest, but still retaining a central house, a place of council 
and of general meeting. When men of the type of Joncaire 
entered one of tihese villages, we may readily imagine the joyous 
greeting that was theirs. They were received as members of 
the tribe and treated as such. No doubt the Indian's self- 
interest entered into his hospitality, for the white man invariably 
brought packs of goods, perhaps a train of followers laden 
vritili clothing, food, ammunition and guns. Oftentimes he was 
accompanied by a gunsmith, w^ho set up his forge in the forest 
and performed for the Indians the crude but necessary metal- 
work whicli they were unable to do for themselves. IMore and 
more the Indians came to rely upon the French for the necessities 
and the luxuries of life. They delighted in ornaments, and 
liquor they always craved, and with this they were generously 
supplied by the complaisant government. In return, they were 
expected to render such service as they could. They were 
looked to as hunters, to provide game for the French garrisons. 
They were employed as spies to watch upon the enemy; to 
make long and incredibly swift journeys on foot or by canoe, 
to report upon what was taking place among the English. Chief 
service of all. they were mustered to march under French 
leadership in wiiatever direction it seemed possible to make a 
successful foray. 

Relations of this kind, between the aborigines and the 
incoming French, continued down to the Britisb conquest; but 
intimate and cordial though they appeared to be, these relations 
were always in imminent danger of breaking. Treachery ever 
lurked behind the pledge of friendship. Nowhere was the 
friendship and service of the Indian more necessary than on 
the Niagara portage. Here, from days immemorial, they had 



■WIBSTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRfiNOH 35 

controlled the movement of travellers from lake to lake. Those 
eight miles of arduous climbing around the Falls were a serious 
hindrance to the passage of expeditions, especially of French 
military expediticuis, , burdened with stores which were being 
transported southward to the posts of the Upper Ohio. In the 
heavy work of carrying military equipment and garrison 
supplies around the Falls, tlie Indians of Western New York 
found perhaps their first organized employment in connection 
with the whites. Like all else that the Indian undertook, it 
was uncertain of accomplishment, likel.v to be abandoned when- 
ever the whim seized his unstable mind. Nativp labor waS a 
source of unending vexation and trouble to Chabert at his 
riverside fort at the head of the portage. A man of exceptional 
ability in dealing with the Indians, and in meeting the demands 
of frontier life, he developed into the first labor leader of 
Western New York. He was for some years absolutely boss of 
the transportation i-ervice of the greatest route which white 
men followed, from the seaboard to the interior. In the last 
years of French occupanc.v, the business of the Niagara portage, 
under a corrupt administration, offered such amazing 
opportunities for graft, for theft, and for unlawful enrichment 
of those who carried it on, that amazing fortunes were piled 
up by a few knaves in public service, most of whom, later on, 
found themselves in the Bastille, and were required to make 
restitution or to undergo banishment for their outrageous 
conduct of affairs in the transportation on the Lakes and the 
Niagara towards the close of the French period. 

Of the many expeditions which the French sent into the 
Lake Erie region, one at least should be given a word. It is 
an expedition which has been singularly ignored by most 
students of the subject. I refer to a military expedition which 
New France sent in 1739 against the Chickasaw Indians. Why 
it was sent to so remote a regioh, against so seemingly ineffective 
an enemy, I cannot undertake to discuss now. The interesting 
point wdiich concerns us in our present study is that this 
expedition was the first Avhich crossed over the watershed south 
of Lake Erie into Lake Chautauqua. The credit of that 
discovery, if it has heretofore been fixed at all, has apparently 
been given to De Celoron, who led a somewhat similar expedition 



36 WiESTBRN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 

ten years later; but that the French penetrated to Lake 
Chautauqua and passed through it in 1739 is a matter of dehnite 
record in contemporary documents. 

From that date to the end of the French regime the extreme 
western part of wliat is now New York State figures with far 
more importance than does, for instance, tlie V^alley of the 
Genesee. The reason of it is plain. France had decided to 
occup3' the Ohio Valley. To that end she sent several military 
expeditions, some of which, crossing Lake Erie, made their 
way by Lake Chautauqua, while others, going west as far as 
Fresqu' Isle, now Erie, crossed to the head waters of the 
LeBoeuf, or French Creek, finding it a more practical road than 
the Chautauqua route. It may appear to you that the operations 
of the French in this region, now Western Pennsylvania, are 
beyond the scope of our particular study this evening. We caur 
not however divide our theme to correspond with modern 
geographical lines. The important thing is that throughout 
the last years of French occupancy, say from 1740 to 1759, a 
policy was being worked out which involved, not only Western 
New York but the region to the southward, for the establish- 
ment of the French power to the west of the AUeghanies, thus 
flanking the English in their constant tendenc}^ to spread into 
the region of the Lakes and the Ohio Valley. Western New 
York was a part of this movement and it is of the greatest 
importance to recognize the significance of events in our region 
as related to the development, first, of British power on American 
soil, and then of that independent movement of the Colonies 
which finally crystallized into the United States of America. 

It V^^as this strife of Great Britain and of France for control 
and occupancy of the Lai es and of the Ohio Valley, which more 
than any other cause roused the British colonies to a realization 
of the need for united action. By 175-4 so desperate had become 
the situation in the disputed region, that the colonies called a 
convention to consider what should be done. That convention, 
held in Albany, may fairly be regarded as a starting-point and 
beginning date in the story of the United Stat6s. When I 
consider it and its far-reaching results, and when I recall even 
a few of the many events which have taken place at Albany, I 
am impressed with the very great historic importance of that 



■WESTERN NEW YORK UWDER THE FRENCH 37 

old town. There are very few places in the United States that 
rival it in age — for Ave may reckon its existence, if not from 
Hudson's visit in 1609, at any rate from 1614, and there has 
never been a time throughout the centuries when it has not 
played an important part in shaping the destiny not merely of 
the Empire »State, ])ut oftentimes of the country as a whole. It 
was emphatically so in this summer of 1754 when most of the 
colonies sent their able men to Albany to confer as to what 
measures should be adopted to thwart the constant encroach- 
]iients of the French. It is too long a story to dwell upon in 
detail. We nuist remember that whatever measures the 
colonies undertook, even when they tardily realized the value of 
cooperation, were likely to be nullified by the disapproval of 
thp home government. But still, out of this Albany Conference 
there did come a united action, there was born a new conception 
of the value of united effort, which may fairly be regarded as 
the very foundation-stone of the Republic. 

War was declared between France and England early in 
1756. It would be tedious to attempt to relate the events of 
the next three years. It is a story of one ministerial policy 
proving' inefficient and giving way to a more vigorous one. It 
is the story of abortive campaigns, followed in the end by more 
thorough preparation, more adequate recruiting and equipping, 
until finally, in the summer of 1759, we find a British and Colonial 
army headed by General Prideaux, with Sir William Johnson 
second in command, making its way along the southern shore 
of lake Ontario and besieging the French at Fort Niagara. You 
know the outcome of that not unfamiliar but very picturesque 
episode in Western New York history. You will recall how, 
after the accidental killing of Prideaux, Sir William Johnson 
carried on the siege until old Fort Niagara was virtually blown 
to pieces and its gallant commandant, Pouchot, capitulated. 
With the fall of Fort Niagara, the abandonment of the chain 
of interior posts was inevitable and within a few months the 
tribes of the region hastened to pledge their allegiance to the 
new power. 

The century-long story of French activities in our region, 
crowded as it is with episodes full of adventure and romance, 
is strikingly lacking in the feminine element. Few women 



38 WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 

ligure ill the history of Western New York under the French, 
but now and then a scattered record gives a glimpse of their 
I)resence. Very notable was the coming through Lake Ontario 
and up the Niagara of the wife of Cadillac, founder of Detroit. 
With her was Madame Alphonse de Toiiti. These ladies came 
in 1701 and were beyotid question, with their attendants, the 
tirst white women who ever passed this way. Probably their 
immediate successors were French Canadian women of humble 
habitant stock, who in the early years of the Eighteenth century, 
went with their families to the Detroit. Some women, too, were 
brought into our region as captives of the Indians. One such 
episode, typical of many, has come to my knowledge with some 
fullness of record, and although the scene of the incident is the 
Alleghany Valley and Fort Duquesne, I venture to relate it 
as typifying experiences of this frontier in the days of the 
French. 

At Fort Duquesne there was one day brought into the fort, 
among other prisoners, a young woman, Rachel by name. 
Captured bj^ Indians on the frontiers of Virginia, she had 
witnessed the burning of her home, the murder of her family. 
As the captives were marched through the wilderness, her last 
surviving relative, an aunt, being unable to walk fast enough 
to suit her savage captors, was brained by a blow of the 
tomahawk. When finally at the gates of Fort Duquesne, the 
young Rachel, with other captives, had to undergo the ordeal 
of running the gauntlet; tiie huge fist of a savage smote her 
in the face ; one eye was i^uined. So grievous was her state 
that she was taken from the Indians and put in the care of the 
post surgeon. During convalescence she learned French and — 
to quote an ol^ record — "as she was pretty and of sweet and 
affectionate character, she touched without thinking to, the 
heart of a Canadian." Happy Canadian, to find in a world 
of horrors so sweet a rose ! He went to the commandant and 
asked to marry her, but there were difficulties — Rachel was a 
Protestant. T!he garrison priest tenderly instructed her in 
the essentials of his faith. Rachel became a Catholic, the 
commandant agreed that the soldier might iijarry, the priest 
was on the point of saying the happy service, when suddenly 
appeared the savage who had captured her, and claimed Rachel 



WIESTBRN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 39 

as his own! His she was by all the usages of the frontier; to 
withhold her meant an Indian attack on the none too capable 
garrison. The commandant resorted to strategy, and while 
the sulky and threatening savage was being assured that he 
should have his pretty wiiite slave, presently, the hastily wedded 
pair were set off by night in a canoe with a little food and a 
gun to get more,— and three months later arrived at New 
Orleans, well, and we must believe, still happy. Does any 
modern bride doubt that there were wedding trips in the "good 
old days," let her imagination dwell on those three months of 
canoe- journey. Does any modern novelist seek a historic 
setting for the one tale that never growls old, let him follow 
for a little the experiences of the Canadian soldier and his sweet 
though one-eyed bride. He at least will admit that invention 
cannot equal the things that are true. 

Then there is the story of the woman, who had been the wife 
of a soldier in Braddock's army, and was taken prisoner by 
the French at Braddock's defeat. Her captors carried her 
to Fort Niagara, where she was long detained, and where, 
supposing her husband killed, she married a French subaltern, 
by whom she had a child. When Niagara fell she, with her 
husband and child, shared the common fate of the French 
captives; but when with six hundred other prisoners, she 
reached Albany, as they defiled before the multitude of curious 
on-lookers, she suddenly beheld in the crowd her English 
husband ! Something of the dramatic the situation surely had, 
as he whom she supposed long since dead on Braddock's Field, 
now appeared, a sturdy soldier of King George, on duty in 
Albany tow^n. There was, beyond question, a halt in the march, 
a gathering of the crowd — in short, a scene. The English 
soldier demanded his long-lost spouse; and — in the words of 
a chronicler who saw what he reported, "after some struggles 
of tenderness for her French husband, she left him and closed 
again with her first; tho' 'tis said the French husband insisted 
on keeping the child as his property, which was consented to 
by the wife and first husband." 

Did time allow we might go on at length with tales of 
this or that phase of those by-gone days. Especially is the 
French period important in the history of inland transportation, 



40 WESTERN NEW YORK UNDER THE FRENCH 

of the evolution of trade routes and of lake commerce. I have 
tried to show how the events of that time link up with the chain 
of American progress. But in the merely local view, with the 
passing of French power, the surrender of the French frontier 
forts and the withdrawal of soldier and agent, of trader, trapper 
and boatman, there vanished from Western New York every 
trace of the long sway of France. Here and there remains a 
French name that still clings to some stream, some isle or 
lakeside point; but of material survivals save one or two 
structures on the Niagara there is nothing to remind us of the 
long occupancy of France. Nothing until we turn to the 
abundant records; and there, in the chronicles of the missions, 
of the fur trade, of the military expeditions, of all the wild 
adventurous life in the forest and on the Lakes, we find an 
historic background rich in episode significant to the student. 
And when we trace the succeeding years — the period of the 
American Revolution, of the great land deals of Western New 
York, of survey and pioneer settlement, of the myriad phases 
of the later years, we can but be impressed with the abounding 
richness of our regional history. And, my friends, whose 
tolerant patience I have so taxed, is it not true, that if the 
past in this our homeland has been rich in significant events, 
our present is equally rich in opportunity! 



THE NEW YORK STATE ARCHEOLOGICAL 

ASSOCIATION. 

Lewis H. Morgan Chapter, 

The dbject of this Chapter shall he to promote 
historical study and intelligent research covering the 
artifacts, rites, customs, heliefs and other phases of 
the lives of the aboriginal occupants of New York 
State up to and including contact with the whites; to 
preserve the mounds, ruins and other evidences of 
these people, and to co-operate with the State 
Association in effecting a Tvider knowledge of New 
York State Archeology, and to help secure legislation 
for needed ends. Also to maintain sympathetic 
appreciation of the history of the American Indians, 
particularly of those now resident in New York State, 
to the end that all of their ancient wrongs and 
grievances may be righted agreeably to their just 
desires both as to property and' citizenship. 

Also to publish papers covering the results of 
field work of members or other matters within the 
purview of the Chapter. 

All persons interested in these subjects are invited 
to become mem^bers of the Association or of the local 
Chapter nearest to them. 

The Association and its Chapters plan to issue a 
uniform series of transactions and researches covering 
all fields consistent with the objects of the Association. 

All members of the Association or of its constituent 
Chapters are issued a memlbership certificate suitable 
for framing and a ipocket membership card serving as 
an introduction in the field where collecting is 
contemplated. 

The Association is approved by the State Education 
Department, University of the State of New York, and 
is working in co-operaaon with the State Museum. 

Address all correspondence to Alvin H. Dewey, 
Box 185, Rochester, N. Y., or Walter H. Cassebeer, 
236 Meigs St., Rochester, N. Y., or Dr. Arthur C. 
Parker, State Museum, Albany, N. Y. 



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